Too Much Sun
by Auto Pilote
Summary: Jane's been out in the sun all day, exploring Africa with her father and Clayton. When she starts telling them what she's seen, they seem to think it's gone to her head. Rated T for themes and references to come. no pun intended janeXtarzan
1. Chapter 1

**Preview: **

**Helloooooooooo auience, or whoever you are. whatever you are. as long as you're reading this. **

**so this is my very first fanfic, it's of the disney tarzan movie, so obviously the characters and most of the dialogue belong to disney, not me. i just thought it would be fun to explore some depth into the characters, build some aspects into an already-existing story, and describe the scenes with words instead of pictures. **

**besides, i'm bored and it's the first day of my summer vacation. or night. it's 1 AM here. **

**sooooooooo... READ IT. tell me if it's good. i usually don't write stuff, i just correct people's essay structures during school hours. let me know if anything about it bothers you, don't hesitate to tell me what you think. **

**actually if its good don't tell me. i only want to know the bad stuff, since good things don't need to be improved, bad things do. **

**there will be chapters to follow, so you can expect them in rather quick succession. **

Chapter 1: Fantasies and Insanities

She could hear the footsteps approaching, and saw the frightened look on the others' faces as they fled the area, leaving her on the ground. Her heart was still beating from the encounter just seconds ago, pounding in her ears along with the beating heat of the African sun through her several petticoat layers. Her eyes followed them right before they disappeared along with him, into the tall grass and trees.

"Jaaaane? Where are you?"

Her father's voice carried through the jungle, followed quickly by the man himself. Her father was short and squat, and quite like a rabbit. His fluffy mustache and ever present twitching and bumbling about portrayed that impression very well. Almost as soon as they had left, her father had hurried into the destroyed encampment, oblivious to their having been here. He landed near his daughter and threw his arms around her, losing his hat in the process, exhausted from searching, articulating her name over again. "Jane! Oh, Jane…Oh, thank goodness." _You're alright_, was the weary message in her father's grateful eyes, grateful that she was alright after all.

Jane couldn't give a thought to her father's worry, she was still captivated by her departed, and most unexpected guests.

Clayton entered the campsite just seconds after the professor, looking around in wonder at the damage done. "Good heavens, what happened here?"

Jane's father, the professor, patted her face with the palm of his hand, jerking her out of her astonishment.

"Oh Jane, we've been everywhere looking for you-" her father started to tell her, informing her of his concern, which she gave no notice to as she came to. She exclaimed with a start, surprising the dear professor.

"Oh, my goodness! Daddy!" Rubbing her head and gesturing wildly, Jane managed to say between breaths, "I was walking…and little baby! Little baby monkey! And I drew a picture-!"

"Yes? Go on?" the professor asked, intrigued by this all of a sudden, his concern quite forgotten by the both of them now.

"Suddenly, the monkey starts crying," Jane rolled her eyes at the thought of the monkey that pinched her sketchbook, with all her previous drawings in it –_and had torn the pages out_. Her father made noise of sympathy for the little creature she spoke of, a noise she ignored. She turned and faced Clayton pointing off in a direction she believed they had come from, or went to, or maybe they hadn't been there at all, but Clayton followed her gaze in that direction as well, clutching at his shotgun. "Then I turn around, aaand there's a _whole_ fleet of them!"

"What, of what?" her father asked anxiously, eager to hear the rest of her story.

"There's a whole army of monkeys, a whole tree full of them-!"

"M-monkeys?" Clayton exclaimed, trying to follow her rant. "Monkeys?"

"-A whole fleet of monkeys! Screaming at me!" she said, conjuring wildly the pictures with her eyes, tracing her memories in the air with her hands, and impersonating their screeches.

"She's very good at this, you know," the professor said to Clayton timidly. He loved his daughter and her antics, but he couldn't help but wonder if there was a reason they were so exaggerated this time.

"Terrified, terrified I was! Suddenly I was swinging, through the vines, up in the air! Flying! I was in the air!"

"In the air!" her father repeated, making the same wing-gestures she was. Clayton was rather detached from her rant, watching with wary eyes.

"And then we were surrounded," she said, taking a deep breath.

"What did you do?"

"And Daddy, _they took my boot!_" she finished, perhaps a tad too focused on the missing boot.

"They took-? Those were the ones I bought you."

Ignoring this comment, she stared off into the distance, recalling _him_. "Then…I was saved, by a flying…wildman in loincloth…"

She wandered off into the camp, oblivious to its destruction and lost in her own thoughts about the mysterious man she had encountered. Would she ever see him again? He couldn't be too far away, and he was _just_ too interesting to overlook…

Her father watched her walk away, and rested his head in his hand. "Loincloth…good lord."

"What is she talking about," Clayton snarled as he put his shotgun away, no intention to actually listen to the answer, but he professor was just as eager as Jane to tell a story, this a small snippet of his late wife.

"I haven't an idea in the faintest…but she takes after her mother, you know. She'd come up with stories like that. Not about men in loincloths, of course," the professor chuckled, before Jane mentioned the word that caught both their attention.

"Oh and there were gorillas."

"Gorillas?" both Clayton and the professor repeated, Clayton going so far as to grab her shoulders and shake her. "You saw the gorillas? Where, Jane, where?" had it been any other time she would have taken the greatest offense and this gesture, but she was too far off in her wonders and musings about the mysterious man in the loincloth. Turning her head to stare out into the forest, she considered that he might still be there, not too far from here.

"He left with them…"

Her father quickly slipped into her path of sight and bombarded her with more questions. "Who, Jane? Who?"

Her face slackened with some unknown feeling, she answered with the name he'd taught her. "Tarzan…"

"Tarzan?"

"The ape man…" she answered, staring off into the heights of the canopy, as if he had been there. Her father and Clayton exchanged looks, and allowed her to disappear into her tent.

"…I do believe your daughter has gotten as bit too much sun walking around with us. Perhaps on the next expedition she shouldn't come with us…she should stay in the camp," Clayton suggested, not attempting to coceal that he was somewhat miffed at the thought of sharing an encampment with someone whose sanity was becoming questionable.

"Yes, a good while of rest should do us all good," the professor agreed, hanging his head. "I don't think we'll find any gorillas if we go about it in the manner that we have been." Clayton too then left and found his tent, disappearing in the folds of it.

"…But…she's never invented something so strange before," the professor murmured to himself. Clayton's implications… was his daughter going mad? She was all he had left, after his wife had passed away. He'd been studying gorillas all his life, and he wanted to take her with him to see them, as she shared his passion for the animals. However, what if his bringing her here was what caused it to occur? The professor shook his head, picking up his hat and dusting it off. "No…surely…Jane's still…it's just a dizzy spell, brought on by the heat…it has to be…I can't lose my Jane, she's all I have left…perhaps it _is_ just the heat and some girlish fantasies…she is that age anyway…"

Placing his hat over his balding head, the professor looked inside Jane's tent. "Hello? Janie?"

She looked up immediately, from scribbling lines onto the back of some used paper. He took note that she wasn't using her sketchbook. She'd probably already filled it up with drawings and doodles. "Yes, daddy?"

"Umm…it is rather hot out here, isn't it?"

"Very. I lost my parasol to those monkeys also, and the sun makes it all the worse, with the humidity and the weather here."

"Oh dear…Well, better make sure you don't get heat-stroke or anything, eh, Janie?" the professor chuckled nervously, playing with his hat. "Or dehydrated…or something to do with the heat. Maybe you should try to stay in the shade and keep cool…"

"Good idea, daddy. I'll change into something lighter, now, if you'll give me a bit. Afterwards I was thinking I could try to draw him and show you what he looked like," Jane answered, standing up and stuffing the paper out of sight.

"Alright then, I'll leave you to it," the professor nodded and left the tent. He tried to rationalize his daughter's story, and hope for the best. If Jane had truly gone mad, who would be there for him?


	2. Chapter 2

**Well helloooo again people. Here's chapter two! Beware, there's a bit of smarm.**

**Wow, can you believe that took like an hour? SOMEbody had a little too much sugar. And that scene had to be re-watched LIKE EIGHTY TIMES OVER.**

**So, just a refresher for those of you who read the last chapter, the characters and most of the dialogue are Disney's property, not mine. I'm just writing in some scenes they sem to have left out of the movies…not I'm kidding. I made them up, and am adding some background to the story. **

**So for those of you who haven't read chapter 1….**

**GO BACK AND READ IT. Now. Do it. Do it right now. I'm serious. **

Chapter 2 doesn't get a title.

It was the next morning, and the day had been slowly going downhill from there for the professor. No gorilla sightings, Clayton was as irritable as he was yesterday, if not more, having run out of things to boast about. And Jane was…possibly going mad. Of course she didn't seem to mind it, ignoring his wishes for her to stay in the shade.

Right about now she was drawing on the chalkboard, and having intercepted her father, had picked up her rant about the wildman and started illustrating his appearance with the chalkboard.

"Daddy!" Jane snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot. He had been starring off into space, _obviously_ not listening. A frown tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"What? Oh, sorry my dear. I was just worried that the boat might arrive and I haven't yet had the chance to see a gorilla…" the professor apologized. While that was a concern of his, he couldn't inform her of his other most pressing worry.

"That's what I was thinking about too," Jane replied, tapping the chalk board and the scratches on it. Her father had a depressing slump in his usual mood all morning. She didn't want to be impatient with her father, but this couldn't wait for his moping to cease. "You see, I thought that Tarzan might be able to show us where they are, if we find him and ask him."

"Tarzan?" her father repeated, having forgotten the details of her delusion.

"Yes, the wildman I was telling you about yesterday," she said slowly, making sure he heard _every word_. "You see, he's one of them."

"Oh?" the professor raised his flyaway eyebrows. "One of who? The ship crew? They haven't gotten here yet…"

"No daddy, the gorillas!" Jane exclaimed, "No not the ship crew. He grew up with them, I think-"

"Tarzan did? And…what makes you think that?"

Jane paused, unsure of how she did come to that conclusion. She chewed on her lower lip, trying to remember, unsure how to explain _exactly_ what she saw. "Well…he didn't stand up right," she started. "He sort of…crouched, like that," Jane explained as she drew some more, adding the curve that outlined his back." And he supported his weight on his knuckles."

"On his knuckles?" the professor murmured, his interest in the subject growing.

"Yes! Exactly like a gorilla."

The professor's enthusiasm became apparent the further he got into this topic."Extraordinary!"

"Oh, it was amazing!" Jane told him, her own excitement increasing. She bent down on the ground and mimicked Tarzan's walk, (perhaps she wasn't getting it right, but that wasn't as important as the demonstration was) she took a few steps the way she remember he had, but found she hadn't seen him walk too much, it had been mostly swinging through the vines. She chewed on her cheek to keep form blurting out anything about that wonderful feeling of flying he had given her. "He bends his elbows out like this, and he walks, like this!" she hopped over to where her father was standing, using Tarzan's way of walking.

"Oh, I see! Like Aunt Isabel!" her father laughed, remaining her of her terribly fragile aunt, his wife's sister, although he never liked her very much. He made sounds as he recognized a beat to the walking, a sort of rhythm. He cried out how capital it was losing himself in the enjoyment, and she hummed her agreement. "Oh Janie, Jane! What a discovery! A man with no language, no human behavior," he counted the traits off on his fingers, practically twitching in excitement.

"And no respect for personal boundaries," she proclaimed, rolling her eyes at how frightened she was at the time she met him, it not seeming nearly as terrible now that she was safe in camp.

"How do you mean?"

"He was this close, daddy! Staring at me!" she pronounced, showing him how close Tarzan was from her face and causing his father to backpedal in his ape-walk. Backing away and standing up herself, she returned to the chalkboard, to finish drawing him. "He seemed…confused at first. As if he'd never seen another human before," her voice dropped to a quieter, tone, because Clayton was standing a little ways away and had been listening the entire time, rolling his eyes. she wanted to keep this close to herself, to protect this strange, wonderful part about Tarzan from Clayton's skepticism. "And his eyes were intense. And focused and…I've never seen such eyes," she whispered, almost only to herself, caressing the detail of his eyes with the chalk.

The professor stared, stunned, glancing back and forth between her and the drawing. He gave a start, sharing a small chuckle with himself. "…Oh…shall I, ahem, leave you and the blackboard… aloooone for a moment?"

"Oh, Daddy, stop it," she giggled, knowing perfectly well what he meant, and even though she laughed, she felt insecure about it. He often made that comment whenever she was drawing something, or reading a book she just couldn't put down, but this time she wasn't drawing an animal or a plant or an inanimate object of some kind…this was an actual person. Back in London she never took any interest in people outside her family, especially men. They were just…too indifferent to her. Tarzan was just…a little more _human_ than they seemed to her; he wasn't some kind of glass statue. She tried to keep her mind off of what her father insinuated by this. "The point is, think of what we could learn from him. We must find him-"

Clayton growled, having finished shaving, and have become fed up with her story-telling. "Professor! You are here to find _gorillas_," he reminded her father, laying his hands on the professor's shoulders, and casting him a look of reproach for letting her expand and become more infatuated in a delusion, which was going to demolish any chance of finding the gorillas. "Not indulge in some _girlish fantasy_."

Jane's open mouth was only a fraction of her anger at Clayton for demoting the wonder she held in Tarzan as a mere fantasy, a _delusion_, by extent. "_Fantasy? _I didn't _imagine_ him, Tarzan is- "

She stopped mid-snap at Clayton as Tarzan fell between them, landing perfectly on the ground. He seemed happy, oblivious to the spat that had just been interrupted.

"…Real," Jane finished, gesturing to Tarzan, and brimming with the pleasure of seeing him again. That, and being _right_.

"Ah! It's him!" Her father was suddenly overjoyed also, spilling over with an excitement he couldn't contain. He darted around, all worries forgotten about his daughter's mental health, peeking at Tarzan curiously, scuttling about to look at him better. "It's, it's, it's him! Tar-zan!"

"Professor! Stand back!" Clayton barked, snatching up his shotgun and pointing it at Tarzan, his finger nearing the trigger.

"Wait-"

"No!" Jane cried, running forward and closing her eyes as she shoved Clayton to upset his aim. He hadn't hit anything yet, but at a point-blank range, he wouldn't miss. Both of them flinched as the gun fired, thankfully in a different direction. She covered her ears, ringing from the din, as he was about the reprimand her, then Tarzan spoke.

"Clayton."

Clayton's eyes snapped to Tarzan, as did the rest of theirs. Tarzan, like a child, proud of this foreign word he knew, and impressed at his own daring to name the noise aloud, repeated it. "Clayton."

The professor enthused in this as well, unable to put into exact words himself what he thought about this encounter, perhaps still excited that there are was a "Tarzan".

Clayton, However, did not think this was nearly as fascinating as it was suspicious. He peered at the…man, barely able to utter, "Have we …met…?" he glanced back and forth from the creature to Jane, who was laughing. "How does he know my name?"

"He thinks it means the sound of a gunshot," she answered, hiding her laughter behind her hand.

Tarzan stood up, moving closer to her, lifting her bangs out of the way as if she were hiding behind it. "Jane…" he named her, quietly fascinated by her.

"Hello…Tarzan," she answered, suddenly a bit uncomfortable as how close he was to her again, real and large as life, no longer just a memory of yesterday, or a _fantasy_.

"I see what you mean about those personal boundaries, her father laughed, before Tarzan slipped away from her, looking around Clayton, examining another one of these strange creatures like him. Clayton clutched at his shotgun, still wary about him. Tarzan stood up as tall as he could, giving Clayton one last look before he mimicked his stance.

"Look at him, Jane! Moves like an ape, looks like a man!" her father twittered, pointing. He stood closer to Tarzan, sank back to his usual stance near the ground, eye-height with the professor. "He could be the missing link."

A thought struck Clayton as he tapped the professor's head, ideas forming in his mind. "Or…_our_ link to the gorillas." The professor made a noise agreement, and Clayton cleared his throat, walking over to the man, posing the question: "Where are the gorillas?"

Tarzan was more interested in tearing Clayton's mustache off than actually taking part in the conversation. Miffed, Clayton shoved Tarzan away, shouting, which Tarzan only mimicked back.

"Shouting won't help Mr. Clayton, he can't speak English," Jane said quiet, and Clayton shot a cold glance at her.

"Then I'll make him understand. If I can teach a parrot to sing "God Save the Queen", I can certainly teach this savage a thing or two," Clayton boasted, walking to the chalkboard and erasing her drawing of Tarzan that had been there previously. Jane realized with a sudden embarrassment that it had been there the entire time that Tarzan had been here. She wondered if he knew that it was of him, but she didn't want to find the answer to that one. Any embarrassment she just had was overwhelmed by contempt for Clayton, and his thick-headed idea that _he_ was capable of teaching English to anyone, much less a parrot to sing.

Clayton picked up the stick of chalk and quickly scribbled a monstrous effigy of his version of a gorilla. Pointing to the chalkboard, he pronounced the word, "Go-rilla."

"Go-rilla," Tarzan repeated, taking the chalk and all his attention immersed in it.

"Oh-ho! He's got it!" her father

Jane suddenly felt forgotten, as if the moments that he had looked at her with such interest were unimportant, that he saw everything with such an expression. Maybe he was like the glass statues. Maybe he was just beautiful on the outside, hollow within.

Maybe she was jealous of a piece of chalk.

Tarzan said the word twice more, and as he started scribbling on the chalkboard, it became apart he had no idea what Clayton had tried to convey to him through the crude picture. Jane shook her head to herself that he probably didn't know what the drawing she had done was.

"No, no, no, no!" Clayton snapped, snatching the chalk away from Tarzan, who only mimicked him, and tried to get the chalk back, the both of them shoving each other in an attempt to keep the chalk and force the other away. "No, no, no, gimme that. No, no, Leave that, no-"

Jane whisked the piece of chalk away and said tersely, "Mr. Clayton, I think I'll take it from here." Both of the men cast her looks, and she made a mental note to get rid of this particular piece of the chalk.


	3. Chapter 3

**Well helloooo once again people. This is chapter 3, finally remembered to post it online. **

**I lied. I gloriously and totally just LIED TO YOU. Not about it being chapter three and all that jazz, but the implication that I've had this for a while. I literally just wrote this up now. But hey, isn't that swell? It means it isn't really old and stinky, it's brand new and freash. (I know I spelled that wrong). Just letting you know that I'm currently watching the movie and reading the script while writing this, so I just think it's be cool if you wanted to read it while comparing it to the movie. And yes, I did work the song-part into it.**

**So, warning for this chapter, there's a couple of things I meant to have rated a little differently, but if someone complains, I'll find a way to move it to a better-suited-rating-place… you know what I mean. **

**OH AND JANE, YOU'VE GOT A BIT OF SMARM ON YOUR SHOULDER. **

**(If you think that sounds like I'm talkingto myself, it's because I totally said that out loud)**

**Okay this intro is taking waaaaay too long, much more than I intended, but I had to fit everything in ( I know, all of WHAT? noh, just me rating to myself. That stuff is important.)**

**So, just a refresher for those of you who read the last chapter, the characters and most of the dialogue are Disney's property, not mine. I'm just writing in some scenes they sem to have left out of the movies…not I'm kidding. I made them up, and am adding some background to the story. **

**So for those of you who haven't read chapter 1 and/or 2….**

**GO BACK AND READ IT. Now. Do it. Do it right now. I'm serious. I'm not kidding. Really. Go do it. NOW. **

**(And for those **_**outstanding**_** people who did read chapter 2, why yes **_**I did **_**copy and paste some of the same intro to chapter 2. But you also have to read chapter 1 too. Better go do that.)**

**Chapter 3: doesn't get a title either. **

It was dark.

Completely sunny outside too, but inside the tent, it was utterly dark. She could barely see anything. A few moments prior she had backed up into Tarzan, and come over entirely by fear, had shrieked. She was afraid of the dark, not being able to see. She had other fears, like abnormally large bugs and a small one of heights, shabby foot-working, and like all of her fears, this time in the dark; she froze, rendered almost catatonic. She could do nothing but let her imagination roam to terrible conclusions, the kind where you didn't tell anyone what they were, for fear they would deem you delusional.

She stood, shaking, pressed hard against something as her fears consumed her mind, unable to snap out of it. Her mind momentarily forgot where she was, and what else was there, until she felt something hard and forceful poking into her back. Voices outside the tent.

With a gasp she burst back into reality, stepping forward, shaking her head as if to clear those foundationless images from her head. She spun at the sound of the tent flaps being thrown open, the sudden light piercing her eyes.

"Jane, m'dear," her father asked quickly, hurrying in the tent, "Whatever is the matter? We heard you cry out-"

"Oh, it was nothing, silly really, " She waved away his worried quickly as usual, never wanting to cause him more stress than he already had after her mother had died. She'd suggested this trip to disperse that constant concern and to further his studies, but mostly because she knew he loved gorillas as much as he did for her mother. That was the whole reason they were here, but to find them-

Jane's eyes flicked to Tarzan, who was going to help them find the gorillas. However, as soon as she turned to look at him, he fell back into his ape-like crouch from his previous standing position; he almost looked as if he was hiding something…

Clayton and her father also turned to look at him as soon as her head turned, a beet-red color growing in Clayton's cheeks.

"…I stepped on small rock," she said quickly, grabbing both their attention back to her. she didn't want to get Tarzan in trouble for anything he didn't do, and she didn't want them to know her fear of the dark either. However, what was Tarzan doing standing behind her?

Clayton and her father nodded, but either of them looked like they were about to leave her and Tarzan alone for a while. She sighed, shook her head, and decided just to get on with the lesson. She lit a match and brought the light in the lamp to life. She eyed Tarzan as he crawled to one of the seats and mimicked how the professor sat on them, but in a moment decided he was more comfortable in that position that appeared he was hiding something close to himself.

She wondered….no, it couldn't be. Jane glanced at Tarzan again, looking at him differently this time and remembering her biology lessons from boarding school. They had learned about that… with much giggling from the rest of her class. It was a topic she was a wee bit squeamish about. She couldn't use the proper terms without feeling uneasy, but at the same time she wanted to know more. As if to add onto her shame, it was such unladylike behavior. In proper society, she felt like even thinking about it was considered unacceptable behavior. But if that was how it truly was, why was it taught about in schools and how the human race had survived this far, she wondered.

Glancing back at Tarzan, she also wondered if Africa was also generally considered a proper society.

She finished lighting the lamp, and almost didn't notice Tarzan leave his seat to investigate the source of this light, so strange. Without a moment's delay, her father quickly came between the two of them, setting up the rest of the projector. She was sure what the professor was eager to do, to separate the two of them, or teach Tarzan to speak English.

The days flew by quickly and while teaching Tarzan wasn't the easiest thing, she still enjoyed spending time near him. Jane supposed he liked being near her also, because every time she did something, he would mimic it in his own way, always eager for her to show him everything, to tell him how. She wondered if it was because he could understand some of what she was saying, or because he liked to hear her speak to him. He was eager to learn, but the pace of his learning would slow and quicken, as if there some things he wanted to learn but there were also some things he just couldn't care less about. She recognized the face he made, like one of her own expression when she was back at school. Learning things, that meant something and nothing to her, she was sure that was how he felt about this now.

But no matter how boring things got, the days growing tedious and static, Tarzan had a way of suddenly creating a memory for her, that separated one day from the rest. Like the time she was showing him slides with the projector again, and she absentmindedly slipped in one of a couple dancing together. She remembered how her mother used to take her to "" and she would watch the couples dancing together, and wish she had a handsome gentleman to waltz with her and whisper in her ear. As soon as she slipped the slide in, she gazed at the picture shown on the hanging canvas, before Tarzan leapt up and grabbed her hands, pulling her into a dance with him that there was no music to. Her father clapped along to the beat Tarzan was dancing with her to, but she didn't hear any of it. She could only see his eyes gazing into her hers. There was no soft music, they danced no waltz, and he didn't whisper in her ear, but his eyes never left hers throughout the entirety of their short dance. She would have danced that way with him forever, to keep his gaze to herself alone.

He looked away sudden, his attention stolen by the next slide that Clayton had gone to the trouble to get up and put it, ending their dance on the spot. Later that night her father, the professor was showing Tarzan the universe with his telescope, explaining to him all kinds of wonders that lay just beyond their reach. Jane wondered if Tarzan could understand what her father was telling him, would he understand the complex feelings she was having right now?

She herself knew very little of what she was feeling, much less thinking. Just the other day she was showing him how to read, and the words, _See Jane Run_, made her blush as Tarzan read them out loud.

The days raced by and she drew him in her spare time, when Clayton took over some of the teaching to lecture him about finding the gorillas. She wanted to remember him the way she first met him, to recapture him in her sketches, but if he kept staring at her like that she wasn't going to be able to draw a straight line…

He would keep leaving and coming back continuously throughout the days and nights, and she supposed he was going back to the gorillas, or wherever he lived. At first Clayton was reluctant to let him go, but they soon found out he was curious to learn more about these strangers like him.

One day in the evening when he came back, she spotted him mimicking Clayton behind his back, imitating his proud stride. He stopped, seeing her and she looked away quickly, not wanting him to know she had been staring. He hurried over to her, sitting down next to her. Furiously she began erasing a part of the bird she was drawing, her pencil having slipped the moment she saw him. She showed him the sketch, holding it up to the bird so that he could see the likeness. Jane's face fell as it suddenly lifted its wings flew away. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth as she felt her mood drown in desperation. This sketch would join the growing pile of half-finished drawings of animals that had left half-way. And she hadn't seen too many of this type of bird around either. She conveyed the feelings to Tarzan, who, although reluctant to speak with the new language he was learning, simply took her hand and led her deeper into the forest.

"Tarzan, what are we doing-" she stared to ask him, when he came to a stop at a vine, and motioned for her to come closer. He took her empty hands, empty because she had left the sketchbook back at camp, and unable to find the words he wanted, placed them around the back of his neck. She felt her face redden; she hadn't been this close to him since they first met in the rain. They were so near each other, their bodies almost touching. She barely noticed him take hold of the vine and mutter for her to hold on, when he lifted to two of them off the ground pulling the vine. She let out a gasp as her feet were lifted off the ground and her body was suddenly pushed against his. It took her a moment or two to realize what he was doing, and how far up they had gotten so quickly. She closed her eyes tightly, not wishing to accidentally look down and let go. Finally he lifted her up and she found her footing, recognizing it to be a tree. His hand touched her shoulder, sliding down to her back to keep her steady. After a moment she opened her eyes, and would have fallen backwards had Tarzan not been holding her.

Those birds, the beautiful birds she'd been trying to sketch, they were all here, in great numbers and not shying away. They flocked to her and Tarzan, sitting on her shoulders and hands, one even atop her head. They spent so much time in the canopy with the birds that she believed she could finish the sketch from memory, and that night fell.

She asked Tarzan how they would get down, with a sinking feeling that she knew the answer. she was right.

As Tarzan found some more vine, she fidgeted with her fingers nervously. "Um, thank you for showing me all those birds, I can't imagine how you knew to find them-"

Tarzan mumbled something about having wanting to show them to her anyway.


End file.
